


The Perks of Being a Wizard

by Antimatics



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Angst, Drug Use, Forbidden Love, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Not really underage but Patrick's still in high school
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:31:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9629861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antimatics/pseuds/Antimatics
Summary: Percival Graves works - a lot. Some might say that's all he does. Because it is. He's transferred to the Pittsburgh Branch of the MACUSA to supervise their Magical Security and Law Enforcement Branch.Patrick thinks his new neighbor is too hot to be living alone in the suburbs and not have something wrong with him. He's decided it's his duty to figure out what. And sure, maybe he just likes having an excuse to stare at this new mystery man.





	1. Chapter 1

            Two weeks. Two weeks until the end of Patrick’s happiness. Two weeks until senior year. Summer hadn’t been terribly interesting, but lounging around on the couch with your friends is a thousand times better than sitting hunched over a laminate lunch table with them for a few minutes between hours of torture. These hours of torture being, of course, classes.

            Classes full of teachers with sticks up their asses and unwarranted egos that filled their already stuffy classrooms. To say nothing of the actual _students_ in those classes. It was like being trapped in a cage with circus monkeys. Though, that might just be an insult to the monkeys.

            But this was his last year of high school. The last year of this utter bullshit of an education. He’d be free to do anything he wanted after this. Whatever that ended up being. Even though he was almost done with school, Patrick didn’t want summer to end. He’d relive this summer on a loop if he could.

            Patrick and his step-sister, Sam, were sitting on the couch, watching some bullshit daytime television and eating ice cream straight from the carton. They had the volume muted and were trying to invent a new dialogue between the two characters on the screen.

            “But you can’t leave sir! We just sat down for breakfast and I was hoping you’d decide to fuck me over the tabletop!” Patrick wailed in a dramatic falsetto.

            Sam snorted, clapping a hand over her mouth to stop any ice cream from escaping, “That’s so gross Patrick!” She gasped, “I think he’s supposed to be her brother.”

            Patrick let out a low whistle, “Well their family is even more fucked up than ours. Unless there’s something you haven’t told me?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Sam, laughing when she shoved him off the couch.

            “Ew!” Sam laughed. She was about to say something else when they heard a loud, obnoxious beeping sound coming from outside.

            Patrick frowned, jumping up to look out the window. “No way.” He muttered, leaning a forward until his nose bumped the glass, “We have new neighbors.” A bright orange moving truck sat proudly on the sidewalk a few yards away.

            Sam frowned, leaning over the back of the couch, ice cream still in hand, “Nobody’s lived in that house in years! Not since that last guy accidentally hung himself.”

            “Auto-erotic asphyxiation is no laughing matter.” Patrick said, laughing.

            Sam’s nose crinkled in disgust and she shuddered dramatically, “Nobody found him for like a week! Just imagine what that must’ve been like to see.”

            “It was probably… life changing. But not for the better.” Patrick watched as a pair of workers pulled open the door of their truck and started moving a black leather couch up the driveway. “I wonder what our new neighbors will be like. Think they’ll try and get you to babysit for them or something?

            “I hope not,” Sam grimaced, “I’m not good with kids.”

            Patrick smirked back at her over his shoulder, “What if their hot dad tries to seduce you?”

            “That sounds more like your fantasy than mine Patrick.”

            “True.”

            They watched as a parade of furniture was marched into the big, empty house. It was all very modern looking and… impersonal in a way. “Did these people’s last house burn down or something?”

            Sam frowned, “Why would you think that?”

            Patrick shrugged, “All of this stuff is brand-new. Looks like something straight out of a catalogue rather than someone’s home.”

            Sam rolled her eyes and turned back to the television, taking another spoonful of now melting ice cream, “Does it matter? Don’t become the nosy housewife of the neighborhood Patrick.”

            Patrick stuck his tongue out at her and sat down beside her again, kicking his feet up on her lap and stealing her spoon from her to pop into his own mouth. Sam lightly smacked his shoulder and stole her spoon back. Their mysterious new neighbor faded from their minds.

***

            Percival Graves had apparated into his new house just moments before the moving truck showed up. He unlocked the door for the workers and ushered them inside with the instructions to ‘leave everything in whatever room you think it belongs in’. Apparently the interior decorator that had ordered all of this unnecessarily leather and chrome furniture would be arriving to sort it out in a few hours.

            Before anyone said anything else he walked briskly from the room and up the stairs, waving his hand in a silent _reparo_ to fix a creaking step as he went.

            Percival was anything but thrilled with his transfer, but when the MACUSA had asked him to move to the Pittsburgh branch to be their new director of magical security and head of law enforcement he hadn’t objected. There was no real point. He was the perfect candidate for the job. He had no friends, no family, and no attachments in New York. It still hurt though, even if Percival would never admit it, that none of his coworkers seemed sad to see him go. That was his own fault. It’s what happens when you never make any effort to be friendly with… well… _anyone._

            Maybe Pittsburgh would be a fresh start for him. Percival would like to say that he was the sort of person that could have fresh starts. But he couldn’t. Not honestly, anyways. He was too set in his ways. Would be until the day he died most likely.

            He stepped into the empty room that would be his bedroom and walked forward to stare out the window, hands clasped behind his back. He had a lovely view of his neighbors closed curtains. Percival was utterly alone in this suburban neighborhood, surrounded by a thousand No-Maj and not a single witch or wizard. He hadn’t chosen this house. Some random worker in Wizard Resources had. And, just like with his transfer, Percival hadn’t fought them. It was probably the same person in Wizard Resources that had hired that awful interior decorator to make the place look ‘homey’.

            Percival rather thought he stuck out like a sore thumb. He was a single wizard surrounded by No-Maj families. They all had their children and book clubs or whatever it is they did with their spare time. Maybe it was some stupid bid to make the ‘cold and stern Director Graves’ realize what a normal forty year old’s life was supposed to be like.

            It didn’t matter. He had to get ready for his meeting with the head of MACUSA’s Pittsburgh branch.


	2. I Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nosy neighbors and drinking away your problems = frayed nerves and blushes

            The meeting had been shorter than anticipated, and Percival had gotten back to his new home much earlier than he was accustomed to. The Governor had just wanted to make sure the president had sent ‘the right guy’ and had had some underling of his show Percival around the office. The ‘underling’, as Percival called the secretary, had been very polite, but in the most boring way. He honestly couldn’t have remembered her name if someone had asked.

            Percival didn’t much like Governor Johnson. The man was too blasé, he didn’t seem to take his job seriously at all. You would expect a little more professionalism from the head of an entire state’s magical government. How had he even been elected? The man had just chattered away about their office’s ‘community’ and how they were one big ‘family’ like some grade school No-Maj teacher.

            In the end, it didn’t really matter what Graves thought about him though. Even if he did technically occupy a higher position than the Governor normally, he was here to be Pennsylvania’s head of law enforcement and director of magical security. His opinion on the Governor’s personality wasn’t necessary. Every month, he would floo to the MACUSA headquarters to speak with the President about the country’s security as a whole. He was a busy man, who apparently was supposed to figure out how to do two jobs at once. But if anyone could do it, it was probably Percival Graves. He was a bit of a ‘workaholic’. Or so he’d heard.

            Percival’s house had been completely decorated in his absence. The designer had called it his ‘bachelor pad’ and had been excited to ‘modernize the suburbs’. Graves had decided that No-Maj were even stranger than he thought. But still, the style reminded him of New York. The little part of him deep down inside that was sentimental felt nostalgic.

            Thankfully he still had case files that needed to be gone through. Working always seemed a good distraction for feelings.

            It had taken some time to convince the governor to let him take the files home, not because he didn’t want them leaving the building, but because Graves ‘needed to relax and settle into his new home’. In the end he’d relented when met with Percival’s raised eyebrow and skeptical gaze.

            Dinner was probably just going to be firewhiskey. He hadn’t bought any food yet, and he’d rather starve then try and figure out what No-maj’s called ‘takeout’ and how to go about getting it over the _phone_. Besides, food became insignificant when there were criminals to apprehend.

            Percival went to grab a glass but thought better of it and took the whole bottle of firewhiskey with him as he sat down on his new couch (Leather of all things) and spread his files out on the coffee table before him. He had failed to notice the fact that none of his windows had curtains (and he wasn’t familiar with what No-maj’s called blinds), and now anyone who passed by his house could probably see right in.

***

            Patrick was taking the trash out when he saw the lights from their neighbor’s house. He’d put it in the back of his mind that someone had moved in and had had to do a double-take at the sign that there were actual inhabitants in there now.

            He absently took a step towards the house, hoping to get a glimpse of these mysterious newcomers. If his life was a book, then maybe this would be the turning point of the plot or the introduction of some sort of antagonist. Or maybe he’d just see some nuclear family unpacking boxes. You never know.

            And that’s how he found himself standing in a stranger’s flower bed peering through their window not ten seconds later. Before you ask, yes he realized how immensely creepy he was being and yes he prayed to every god out there that the cops wouldn’t be called on his sorry ass. But fuck it he was curious and nothing happened in this goddamned town.

            _Fuck…_ Patrick thought, _why’d our neighbor have to be hot?_

            And apparently a drunk too, if the half empty (Or half full no judgement here) bottle of amber liquid the stranger was drinking out of was any indication. He seemed to be reading something, something that caused deep frown lines to appear on the (handsome) stranger’s profile. Maybe he was a cop? Fuck only knows how much Patrick would have to drink to be a cop.

            Also – who knew Patrick was into older men? Not Patrick. At least not until now. Ugh, did that mean he had daddy issues or something? _Nope, not going there._ Patrick decided.

            He took a step back to walk away and felt his foot catch on something, sending an arm wildly banging into the window pane in an unconscious effort to keep from tripping. But of course he tripped, and ended up taking out a few innocent shrubs in the process. Patrick quickly straightened up in time to see his neighbor on his feet with… _a stick(?)_ in his hand.

Patrick didn’t stick around long enough to question it and ran back towards his house faster than he’d ever moved in his entire life, slamming the front door behind him and leaning against it like their neighbor was just going to burst through their door.

Sam gave him a startled look from the couch, “What happened?”

Patrick blushed furiously and averted his eyes, darting towards his room without another word.

***

After the initial reaction to the sudden noise at his window Percival was able to suppress his instinctive battle reaction enough to send a few diagnostic spells over his property. Obviously nothing had attacked yet and if anyone was hiding nearby a least he’d have an idea what he was dealing with.

A soundless sigh escaped his lips when he learned that it had just been a harmless no-maj. Though why one had felt the need to look through his windows he hadn’t a clue. Nosy neighbors where universal he supposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy oh boy I haven't updated this fic in three months lord forgive me. I never abandon a work like that after the first chapter... though I have shamelessly refused to update my other works for months after like twenty chapters... oops. Let me know what ya think kiddos

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovelies!! I haven't written a crossover like... ever. So tell me what you think and what you'd like to see happen in this story!! Comments make the world a better place.


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